Final salute

The Navy started the day with 18 frigates in the fleet. It ended it with 17 after the retirement of the USS Reuben James at Pearl Harbor.

The last remaining frigate home-ported in Hawaii was decommissioned Thursday after 14 deploy­ments and 27 years of service — including some tense moments in the Persian Gulf region.

"The great gray hull you see behind me is a large hunk of steel, aluminum and wood," Cmdr. Daniel Valascho, the ship’s final commanding officer, told families and former crew members. "What makes it a ship is its people, the crew. You can be proud to say you’ve served aboard Reuben James. She was, still is, a great ship."

The Navy commissioned 51 of the ships, which were designed in the early 1970s during the Cold War as less expensive escort vessels and sub hunters.

But the era of the frigate is ending, with the Navy planning to replace the warships with so-called littoral combat ships that can operate in near-shore waters.

The Navy announced last week that it would retire seven more frigates in fiscal 2014.

Crew members on the Reuben James noted the history they are a part of and said they’ll miss the camaraderie on the smaller Oliver Hazard Perry-class warships.

Petty Officer 2nd Class William Shammas, 30, a machinist’s mate, said it is disappointing to see the ships go. Frigates have always been part of the Navy, he noted.

"Heck, the U.S. Navy’s real first ships were frigates," Shammas said. "The first one, and the oldest ship in the United States Navy, is a frigate — the USS Constitution."

The Naval Act of 1794 authorized the construction of six frigates, including the Constitution, for an American navy.

Chief Petty Officer Drew Pickens, 35, the Reuben James’ chief fire controlman, said he’d spent his entire Navy career working on or with frigates.

He was assigned to a frigate in 2002, and had been on the Reuben James for the past two years.

"This is a sad day for me," Pickens said. He added that the crew was close-knit.

"We all work to help each other and get the mission accomplished," he said.

The 453-foot Reuben James, named after a sailor who fought against Barbary pirates in 1804 and protected the life of his captain, carried a crew of about 200 compared with about 275 on a destroyer.

"Because you have a smaller crew, everybody needs to put something in," Shammas said.

The Navy’s other frigate home-ported at Pearl Harbor, the USS Crommelin, was decommissioned in October.

Retired Command Master Chief Ron Wilson, 65, who was an original crew member, or "plank owner," on the Reuben James in 1986 when the ship was home-ported in Long Beach, Calif., said the Oliver Hazard Perry frigates were an experimental class of ship.

"It was a transition from old steam-powered boilers to gas turbine engines," he said before the ceremony.

The ship was speedy and well suited for anti-submarine warfare, Wilson said. The warships are designated as guided-missile frigates, but the missiles were removed and replaced with a deck gun.

Retired Capt. Faris Farwell Jr., who was operations officer on the Reuben James in 1988 and later served as commanding officer from 1997 to 1999, recalled the ship losing its rudder — it fell off — in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of Iran.

The Reuben James also was given the mission of stopping an arms-carrying ship in the Persian Gulf, he said, adding he was given authority to use "disabling fire" to stop and board the vessel.

As the ship made a beeline for an Iranian island, the ship’s helicopter hovered in front of the suspect ship and aimed its weapons at the bridge, Farwell said. The ship stopped its engines and was boarded, he said.

The Reuben James returned to Hawaii on May 3 from the western Pacific, its final deployment.

About 170 members of the ship’s crew lined the rails of the ship and were pierside for the decommissioning and one of Valas­cho’s last orders: "XO (executive officer), make preparations to decommission USS Reuben James."

The ship’s sailors left the ship, taking its commissioning pennant with them. Taps was played, and the large American flag flying on the ship was removed.

Officials said the Reuben James will be kept in the inactive-ship facility at Middle Loch until it is possibly sold to a foreign nation.

Pearl Harbor now has 10 surface ships, with the possibility of two cruisers also being retired, but Rear Adm. Richard L. Williams Jr., the new commander of Navy Region Hawaii, said, "We’re committed still to have 11 ships here."

That means one or more ships would be moved to Pearl Harbor.

"I think it (11 ships) is exactly what we want for the re-balance (to the Pacific)," Williams said.